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How an institution can be liable in a child abuse case

In recent years, many cases of child abuse in the Catholic Church have surfaced. One priest from New South Wales has recently joined the Church's long list of shame and has pleaded guilty to dozens of crimes. One of the victims has recently come out expressing the anger he feels towards his abuser, 

The case 

A NSW Catholic priest is well-known for having had 35 different victims come forward. As of October 2016, ABC News writes that he has pleaded guilty to sexual offences that occurred in the 1980s in the NSW Hunter Region.

He has already served 14 years in prison for his other offences. Now, his psychologist claims that the priest is "fully rehabilitated" and has shown remorse for his past behaviour.  As a result, the sex offender has been given a 15-month suspended sentence and has had four charges dropped after pleading guilty to gross indecency and attempting sexual intercourse with a boy. 

The Daily Telegraph reports that the victim has now said that he wishes that he had killed the priest when he was younger.

In August this year, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse held a hearing in Newcastle to investigate the priest's crimes. The Commission concluded that the institution – the diocese – was made aware of the abuse by the priest in the mid-'70s and did not inform the police until 20 years later.

Getting compensation for child abuse

The Australian Institute of Family Studies states that, in NSW, institutions are legally required to report to the police if they suspect on reasonable grounds that a child is at risk of significant harm.

If you think an individual is guilty of child abuse and/or an institution failed to report the behaviour, consult with Gerard Malouf and Partners. We have free over the phone consultations as well as free face to face consultations. 

We are a reliable legal team that will ensure that any information you give us is utterly confidential. That's a promise.

Our team is very experienced in lawsuits involving getting compensation for victims of child abuse and have been successful in a number of cases involving religious organisations like the Catholic Church.

Call today to learn about how child abuse compensation works and what we can do to begin the process of getting you compensation for being subjected to this kind of abuse.

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Gerard Malouf & Partners have provided friendly, experienced legal advice to communities across Australia for over 35 years. Our Personal Injury Lawyers have taken on ten’s of thousands of cases and we are proud to have won billions of dollars for our clients.
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Meet the diverse and dynamic team of compensation lawyers and supporting staff that have made this all happen below. Our multi-lingual team can discuss your claims in Arabic, Assyrian, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, Serbian, Croatian, Armenian, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi or Malayalam.

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